Lynnette Hardway and Rochelle Richardson, better known on YouTube as Diamond and Silk, became social media icons in 2016 when they publically proclaimed their support of Donald Trump in a series of online videos, often defending the then presidential candidate against vicious attacks from the mainstream media.

Diamond and Silk quickly rose to online stardom for their avid support of Donald Trump and even spoke at his rallies in August of last year and January of this year.

Yesterday, Diamond and Silk took to Twitter to blast YouTube for what they view as censorship after the online media giant abruptly demonetized 95% of their videos, dramatically cutting their source of income from their popular videos. Currently, Diamond and silk have 89,000 YouTube subscribers and 361,000 on Twitter, giving them a large platform for their pro-Trump messages.

Today, Diamond and Silk announced that they “smell a class action lawsuit” in response to YouTube’s censorship and obvious bias against conservative Trump supporters using their platform to make their voices heard.

We Smell A Class Action Lawsuit.
This…. S.ugar H.oney I.ce T.ea have got to stop.
YouTube……Google, this does not look good! pic.twitter.com/0GTE0wb6c3

YouTube’s latest strike against conservative video makers comes only two weeks after the company announced they would “soon be applying tougher treatment to videos that aren’t illegal, but have been flagged by users as potential violations of our policies on hate speech and violent extremism.”

“We’ll soon be applying tougher treatment to videos that aren’t illegal but have been flagged by users as potential violations of our policies on hate speech and violent extremism,” the company announced Aug. 1 on its official blog. “If we find that these videos don’t violate our policies but contain controversial religious or supremacist content, they will be placed in a limited state. The videos will remain on YouTube behind an interstitial, won’t be recommended, won’t be monetized, and won’t have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes.”

Conservative icon and frequent guest on The Alex Jones Show, Paul Joseph Watson, announced today that he “won’t be around much longer” and that he is “done with YouTube…for now” after they demonetized a large portion of his videos and Facebook banned him for posting a joke about feminism. This came only a week after Watson warned that YouTube would use their new policy of empowering the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) to police “extremist” videos to suppress conservative viewpoints on their platform. Watson currently has over 1 million subscribers to his YouTube channel, a large following across social media sites.

As online media platforms, social networks and search engines race to suppress conservative opinions, beliefs or expressions that they consider to be dangerous to liberal progressiveness, they may have bit off more than they could chew by attacking Diamond and Silk’s videos. Besides having a tremendous following and loud voice, the sisters have been personally recognized several times by President Trump himself.

By attacking the most popular conservative YouTubers by either artificially suppressing their videos or taking away their ability to fund themselves, YouTube is creating a unified force of Trump supporters ready to fight back. It can’t be long before President Trump is made aware of Diamond and Silk’s plight, as he personally met them and thanked them many times for their support, and decides to perhaps take action to protect freedom of speech online.

YouTube, Google and Facebook cannot win their battle to suppress conservative viewpoints by censorship alone, as the very fact that Donald Trump won the 2016 election shows that there is a much deeper movement against the progressive agenda than they could have possibly anticipated. Outright censorship, or other sneaky methods of suppressing viewpoints, will only make martyrs out of the very icons they are trying to force off their platforms. The genie came out of the bottle with Trump’s election, and there is no stuffing it back in through heavy-handed tactics and brute force. Only a more effective, convincing idea can combat another powerful idea.

Although platforms like YouTube and Facebook are in fact private companies and can essentially do as they please, I can only imagine the outcry from the left if progressive online personalities were demonetized by a conservative leaning website, especially if it were happening to two minority women. The left would be out in force crying “racism” and “sexism”, demanding that the government take action to protect these women from vicious attacks due to their political beliefs. Unfortunately for Diamond and Silk, they do not follow the pre-programmed leftist agenda that social media companies demand of their users, and are being punished for “wrong think”, essentially committing the worst of thought crimes…supporting President Donald Trump.

It’s only a matter of time until the push for media giants like YouTube and Google to be declared public utilities comes to fruition, and their aggressive attacks against all conservative viewpoints and those who express them will only accelerate this process.

These leftist companies need to ask themselves, when has outright censorship ever worked when trying to suppress a wide spread movement or idea? It only fuels the flames of resistance against the establishment status quo, as it’s human nature is most people to rebel against the predominant thought process being forced upon them.

Guitarzan

When will D&S file their lawsuit? There are tens of thousands of Americans who want to join. Please provide us the information on how we can support the fight against censorship of conservative opinion by the left. This censorship is not limited to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. It includes Disqus and other social media sites as well. Our 1st Amendment rights are being taken away before our eyes, and we’re doing nothing to stop this. D&S, please help us help you.